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Sun Oct 12, 2008 3:09 am

shloopter30 wrote: I like the smart tires. Regarding lowering the rear, I was looking at the lowering brackets in the classifieds. Anyone ever use these?

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=656969

whats size tires are those?

Tue Oct 14, 2008 2:33 am

yaz731200 wrote:

so mounted smart tyres today amazingly lower!
gona order disc kit and shocks but so far its workin out smoothly!
need to lower rear kinda fishy about that mind!
wat you guys think?
oh also if im going that low is caster angle a problem and how does it affect it?

i mean these tires

Tue Oct 14, 2008 4:02 pm

hrere 145/65r15 pretty nice too standard on smart car!!
if u can get them second hand quite cheep if not continentals start at about £70 ish and the ones there bridgestone are even more here in UK!!

Mon Nov 10, 2008 11:47 am

Can anyone give me an idea what I should expect to pay a shop to weld in a set of adjusters? This will be for a balljoint beam and I will disassemble it before taking it to the shop, and I will supply the adjusters.

EDIT: Nevermind, I finally got my answer....wow, lots more than I expected!

Wed Nov 19, 2008 3:14 pm

so yh been drivin it about and noticed pass front ride height is heigher then drivers!
wen i was lowering the back (2 outer)
i kinda pulled the passanger torsion arm right out and then gave it a aroundabout guess!
im thinking i now need to sort it out but can i get away with just one side and wich one needs to go either up or down?

Tue Nov 25, 2008 10:25 pm

To even out the ride height up front, first double check the height between the left side of the torsion tube to the ground, and then the right. Confirm the suspension/pan is off, and it's not mismatched fenders.

Then adjust the opposite rear corner. If you want the passenger side front to go lower, raise the driver's side rear.

-Dave

Wed Nov 26, 2008 3:17 pm

il giv it a go althogh i droped the front another inch or so and the two sides have lined up!
:S

Thu Dec 04, 2008 8:26 pm

Glen that is the best restortation site i have ever come across ,it is great you have put alot of work into it and it is now being appreciated by volkswagen lovers all over the world well done mate.

Mon Dec 08, 2008 11:04 am

19 pages and counting :shock: - Wide Whites on a dropped spindle - ball joint, stock width beam question

Like others - theres a lot of stuff to try to follow. :?

So - can anyone answer this specifically - Want to do wide white walls with 2 1/2" dropped ball joint spindle. Not seeing much available in a whitewaill lower profile tire. Any ideas?

Mon Dec 08, 2008 12:05 pm

andk5591 wrote: 19 pages and counting :shock: - Wide Whites on a dropped spindle - ball joint, stock width beam question

Like others - theres a lot of stuff to try to follow. :?

So - can anyone answer this specifically - Want to do wide white walls with 2 1/2" dropped ball joint spindle. Not seeing much in a lower profile tire. Any ideas?

What's the aspect ratio/how tall are they?

Here's 175/55/15 on 4.5 chromies with a stock width beam with spindles.

I have about an inch to the fender. Stock wheels with 165s got awfully close to the fender without rubbing, but I never let it settle or drove it like that.

Sun Dec 21, 2008 8:39 am

Haven't found this in this thread, but I may have missed it - Planning on doing dropped spindles on the new (old?) project (69 type 1)- can I remove the spindles without trashing the ball joints? The beam was completely rebuilt and only has maybe 800 miles on it and I hate to replace them if I don't need to. Also - still trying to find zero offset ball joint drum dropped spindles. Thanks

Tue Dec 23, 2008 4:52 pm

Just finished reading this thread and now my head hurts!

Some good information, but sadly some good questions have also been left unanswered. I have 17" rims on my bug at the moment and would like to lower the front and fit a set of 15 " aftermarket rims since i have already have the drums re-drilled at the front and have adapters at the back.

My question is if I go with dropped spindles and 15 " aftermarket wheels I believe this would most likely rub against the fenders, but since the car needs a respray would it be possible to alter the shape of the fender or bending the metal on the inner lip out (the part directly above the front of the tire)?

Would it be easier to keep the 17" rims and just fit adjusters? I would much rather prefer the bolt on procedure of dropped spindles though.

Wed Dec 24, 2008 9:49 am

Quote: andk5591 wrote:

...can I remove the spindles without trashing the ball joints?

I would imagine that they should pop off pretty easy with only 800 miles on them. You'll probably need to replace the boots after the tools cut them up. I would try to use a threaded balljoint separator rather than a fork. Good Luck!

Wed Dec 24, 2008 10:00 am

TurKuaz wrote: Just finished reading this thread and now my head hurts!

Some good information, but sadly some good questions have also been left unanswered. I have 17" rims on my bug at the moment and would like to lower the front and fit a set of 15 " aftermarket rims since i have already have the drums re-drilled at the front and have adapters at the back.

My question is if I go with dropped spindles and 15 " aftermarket wheels I believe this would most likely rub against the fenders, but since the car needs a respray would it be possible to alter the shape of the fender or bending the metal on the inner lip out (the part directly above the front of the tire)?

Would it be easier to keep the 17" rims and just fit adjusters? I would much rather prefer the bolt on procedure of dropped spindles though.

Sounds like you need a narrowed beam to me.....
Its very hard to answer questions like this without pictures. :x

Sun Jan 18, 2009 7:47 pm

I finally got the rear of my '69 done. Two outer splines, notched plates, cut down bump stops. I put the car down and it's bottomed out on something. I read here that the control arm will hit before the shocks bottom out. My double spring plates are about an inch from hitting and the bump stop mounts are about 1 1/2" from hitting and the control arm is nowhere close to hitting. Oh, there's no engine in it either and it's still bottomed out on something. I'll take the shocks off tomorrow and check it out.

Do any of you here that have your late models slammed have photos of what you cut in the rear?

Mon Jan 19, 2009 9:24 am

I just want to put a note in here for people looking for shocks for their lowered front end.
I spent a few hours cross referencing shock catalogs. I was able to exactally match the top and bottom mounting points and sizes with a few other shocks.
After going through those part numbers I found what I thought was the perfect shock. It had the exact same mounts as factory, but it would collapse very short. They were for a Honda Passport. At $16 each I'd give it a shot.
The valving is way too stiff for a VW.

So if you come across those and think they might work, think again

Tue Jan 20, 2009 2:02 pm

I figured out my own problem with the rear end bottoming out. I didn't have enough weight on it. I thought it was bottoming out, but without the engine in the car, I couldn't push down hard enough.

Fri Jan 23, 2009 1:54 am

why is this not a sticky anymorE? and what happened to all the other stickys?

Sat Jan 24, 2009 4:25 pm

Just finished dropping my project today. Went surprisingly well. AC industries 2 1/2" dropped drum spindles in the front - Old spindles came of with little effort ( the Bently "hammer" trick worked perfectly).

Used my recently purchased spring plate tool to drop the rear about 1". (while I was at it, replaced the urethane tranny mounts with stock rubber. ) Only hassle I had was that I didn't have the smaller front tranny mount nuts. Also did a "home" alignment.

I had been dreading this project for weeks and I spent a couple hours yesterday on it and was done by around 1 this afternoon. And I didn't even break a sweat LOL

Nice that stuff goes the way it's supposed to for a change, huh?

Mon Feb 02, 2009 2:07 am

"these forged spindles feature zero offset"

http://www2.cip1.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=C13%2D22%2D2951